With US regulators in the bag, it must have seemed like just a matter of time before Oracle's planned $5.6bn purchase of Sun Microsystems would get European approval.
Such was the level of confidence, Oracle boasted in June it fully expected the deal would close "this summer" - putting that at the end of September in calendar …

Master of the obvious

Not that late!

So what, it's October 7th, so Larry is seven days late. With an industry used to Sun bringing product to market years late (if at all), seven days is hardly news. This article would have been better kept until the January lull, when it would have been more appropriate . Of course, I expect Larry to have found the right EU Commissioners to "invest in" by then anyway, so maybe it's better for Mr Clarke to get a small dig in now rather than when it would be more relevant.

What's worth $100M a month?

Seems like Sun/Oracle could end the EU's interference by spinning off MySQL. The guys who sold it to Sun could probably be attracted by the right price. :-) Some tinkering with the numbers on the Sun/Oracle deal would be required, of course, which Sun probably wouldn't like.

Does LE's willingness to endure $100M/month losses say something about how much he values MySQL, which perhaps validates the EU's interest and scrutiny, or ... ?